Month: November 2020

Government Agrees Plan to 'Save Christmas' Unpublished sketch by Telegraph cartoonist Bob Moran At a COBR meeting yesterday afternoon chaired by Michael Gove, the UK Government agreed plans with the First Ministers of the devolved nations to allow up to three households to gather over the five-day period between the 23rd and 27th of December. People will be able to travel freely across all areas of the UK, with an extra day of leeway at either end afforded to anyone wishing to travel in and out of Northern Ireland, to allow for the added journey time. The announcement comes after days of speculation in the media about the fate of the Christmas festivities. The temporary relaxation of restrictions came with several caveats, as the Times reports: Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, agreed the exemption with the First Ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland at a COBR meeting this afternoon, saying the Christmas rules “will offer hope for families and friends who have made many sacrifices over this difficult year”.Mr Gove conceded that “the Christmas period this year will not be normal” but said that “families and friends will now have the option to meet up in a limited and cautious way across the UK should they wish".Family meetings will be limited to private homes and outdoor spaces, with ...

Dr. Roger Hodkinson Part Two – How to Prepare for the Next Big One Lessons learned In Part One, good grounds were presented to describe how perverted the COVID-19 experience has been to date. Just about every resource expected to help define and support an effective public health response proved to be suspect: the WHO, CDC, FDA, NIAID, laboratory testing, statistics and computerised modelling, assessment of treatment options and the media. Those serious deficiencies plus the lack of preparedness were made painfully obvious, with a devastating number of unnecessary deaths and a severe interruption of the global economy. We must seriously re-examine how to minimise deaths while not killing commerce. The cure must not be worse than the disease! Eight major failures created a perfect storm: The ‘experts’ at all levels were often flat out wrongBureaucratic obstructionism was rampantComputer modelling wildly exaggerated riskThe media fanned the fire, driving unprecedented public paranoiaLarge scale testing was dangerously delayedMany well intentioned interventions were just plain guess workEssential medical supplies, equipment and drugs had not been strategically stockpiledOur political leaders succumbed to disinformation and media hysteria But the most important lesson was that Common Sense was singularly ignored! So let’s review what must be done before ‘The Next Big One’. The WHO To be blunt, heads should roll. In particular Drs. Adhanom and Ryan ...

Lockdown 3.0 Bob's cartoon in the Telegraph on November 1st Yesterday evening Boris rang in from self-isolation to give his much-awaited briefing on the winter Covid plan. The MailOnline has the details: Boris Johnson tonight warned against "over-optimism" as he said many areas face going into tougher Tiers after December 2nd than they were in before the blanket lockdown... He braced the public in England for difficult months before the 'cavalry' of science comes to the rescue and finally ends the crisis. And he said that although the national lockdown will finish next Wednesday, large sections of the country will still be under harsher measures than before it began on November 5th. Mr Johnson said "things will look and feel very different after Easter, with a vaccine and mass testing". But he cautioned that the months ahead "will be hard, they will be cold, they include January and February when the NHS is under its greatest pressure". He added: "Tis the season to be jolly, but it is also the season to be jolly careful, especially with elderly relatives." The new tier system is jolly careful indeed. The Telegraph as more on its implications for pubs, shops and services. For church services The Prime Minister confirmed on Monday that church services including Christingles and midnight mass will be able to take ...

Dr. Roger Hodkinson Part One – Who failed and why The World Health Organization (WHO) Statistically speaking, given the probable origin of SARS and COVID-19 in China, the next pandemic is likely to originate there also. That’s a problem. China was secretive about the start of its local COVID-19 epidemic (and still is), wasting valuable weeks before alerting the WHO of its existence which then downplayed its significance for the rest of the world. An early warning system is a vital starting point for effective international response to future pandemics. Clearly, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the WHO cannot be trusted to act any differently in the future. Furthermore, the (current) head of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom, is not a physician as have been all his predecessors, and has questionable credentials to effectively lead such a vital international resource at a critical moment in world history. He has, at times, acted as China’s apologist in this whole fiasco, compounding the problem by disseminating China's misinformation under the imprimatur of the WHO early in the pandemic. A senior WHO official responsible for the global response to this pandemic, Dr. Michael Ryan, has actually stated that “we may have to enter homes and remove family members” if they are COVID-19 positive – but in a “dignified manner”. It would seem ...

A "Careful and Limited" Christmas Christmas decorations covered by tape in a Cardiff Home Bargains, from Wales Online Image: Matthew Horwood Ministers from all the UK nations met yesterday to agree plans for the festive period. According to the Cabinet Office, they haven't yet reached an agreement, although it tried to spin this as "progress": Welcoming the good progress made by all administrations over the past few days to design a single set of arrangements that can apply across the UK, Ministers reiterated the importance of allowing families and friends to meet in a careful and limited way, while recognising that this will not be a normal festive period and the risks of transmission remain very real.As such, Ministers endorsed a shared objective of facilitating some limited additional household bubbling for a small number of days, but also emphasised that the public will be advised to remain cautious, and that wherever possible people should avoid travelling and minimise social contact.  The Sun was one of several papers briefed on the plans under discussion: What Brits can do this Christmas:It is believed a limited number of households will be able to meet up indoors including at the pubThis effectively scraps the rule of six over the five-day periodThe relaxed rules will likely come in on Christmas Eve through to the Bank ...

Lockdown 2.0 to End in Tiers Boris is expected to announce his post-lockdown Covid plans on Monday. The Telegraph has the details. England’s national lockdown will end on Dec 2nd but be replaced by a new harsher three-tier system, Boris Johnson will announce on Monday.More areas will be placed into the higher tiers than before the lockdown after warnings from SAGE scientists that the previous levels of restrictions were not strong enough and a tougher regional approach was needed.The Telegraph can also reveal that everywhere from factories and offices to towns and cities will be blitzed with mass testing if cases start to rise, under plans to be set out this week.The Prime Minister’s “Covid winter plan” is expected to place more areas into the higher tiers to ensure further restrictions are not needed.While some local measures will be similar to those in the previous system, some tiers will be strengthened to safeguard the gains made during the national lockdown.Last night it emerged that the 10pm curfew for restaurants and pubs – which has been severely criticised by Tory MPs – is likely to be extended to 11pm when the tiers are published on Monday.   Final details will be signed off at a meeting of the Cabinet today. Details of the new tougher tiers system, which comes into force on Dec 3rd, will be ...

If Lockdown Was a Drug, Would We Use It? On Thursday I asked why lockdowns aren't subject to the same rigorous safety and efficacy protocols as drugs and vaccines despite their huge collateral harms for questionable pay-offs. Today we're publishing an original piece by three scientific researchers that looks at exactly this question. The authors are Dr Kerry Nield, Dr Juergen Dobmeyer and Dr David Cook, who between them have over 60 years' experience in the field of drug development and clinical research. So they know what they're talking about when they say: if Lockdown was a drug, we would not use it. From the introduction: One of the central tenets of healthcare provision is that all patients have the right to expect equal treatment. Unfortunately, much as we might wish to offer the best treatments to all, there are only finite resources available and so it is necessary to balance the needs of different patients to ensure their fairest distribution. This is a difficult balancing act, but over the years we have developed approaches to ensure such judgements are as objective and as equitable as possible. In the UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is responsible for doing this, but the approaches taken by NICE are not unique and similar methods are used by healthcare ...

Dr. Kerry Nield PhDDr. Juergen Dobmeyer MDDr. David Cook PhD. DisclaimerThis article represents the opinions of the authors and does not represent the opinions of any business or entity for which the authors work or have worked. One of the central tenets of healthcare provision is that all patients have the right to expect equal treatment. Unfortunately, much as we might wish to offer the best treatments to all, there are only finite resources available and so it is necessary to balance the needs of different patients to ensure their fairest distribution. This is a difficult balancing act, but over the years we have developed approaches to ensure such judgements are as objective and as equitable as possible. In the UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE1) is responsible for doing this, but the approaches taken by NICE are not unique and similar methods are used by healthcare systems around the world.2 Non-pharmaceutical interventions such as the imposition of societal restrictions, ‘lockdowns’, aim to have clinical outcomes i.e., a reduction in COVID-19 cases and deaths. However, unlike almost all other medical inventions these have not been subjected to the normal assessments used to test their effectiveness and worth. So, what if lockdowns were a new treatment, ‘Lockdown™’, would we use it? Three important areas are considered by ...

Health and Safety Breaches at a Lighthouse Lab What follows is a guest post by Toby. Those of us who are dubious about the number of daily cases being announced by the Government each day tend to focus on the false positive rate, as well as the low professional standards at testing centres, leading to cross-contamination before the samples make it to the labs. But focus has now begun to shift to the labs themselves, with Channel 4 broadcasting a Dispatches on Monday night that revealed various lapses at the superlab run by Randox in Northern Ireland that analyses COVID-19 tests from across Britain. An undercover reporter discovered serious failings, including cross-contamination of test samples. One expert told Dispatches that the lab's “cavalier approach to safety” could lead to cross-contamination and potentially wrong test results. And by "wrong" they mean a person could be wrongfully diagnosed as positive. After all, if two swabs contaminate each other – one negative, the other positive – they both end up as positive. If cross-contamination is happening at these superlabs – and we have every reason to believe it is – the number of positives is being inflated. Today, Lockdown Sceptics is publishing an original piece by Dr Julian Harris, a veteran scientist. He got a job in July at the Lighthouse lab in ...

by Jack McClure We are Unlock, a student-led campaign that aims to highlight the irrationality and inherent unfairness of lockdown policies.  Unlock believes that lockdowns are highly damaging, based on overzealous science, and contrary to the very foundations of our traditional British liberty. Our mission is to raise awareness about the unforeseen, true costs of lockdown – the shocking excess deaths, the mental health struggles, and the decades worth of damage to our small businesses. This campaign seeks to give a real voice to people who can testify to the impact of lockdown on their lives. Our duty as citizens is to support the communities around us. Our aim is to increase public awareness of lockdown’s limitations, ultimately to push the government to rethink the cost of their actions. Our campaign has five goals: 1. Unlock business. We want to unlock the voices of small business owners who have borne the financial cost of lockdown. With regulations often announced at short notice, businesses have had an extremely stressful, uncertain experience in which they are constantly adapting how they trade (if at all). Business owners across the country made a heroic effort and investment in a time of great uncertainty to reopen their businesses in a new, Covid-safe manner; it is the businesses that are to thank for the restart of ...